Rural transport needs new funding sources

Update:
July, 07/2015 - 10:14

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Work in progress on a rural road in the mountainous commune of Thach Giam in Nghe An Province. Nearly 50,000 km of new roads have been built in rural Viet Nam in the last five years. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Tung

New-style rural areas have to meet a set of 19 criteria that includes infrastructure development, production capacity and environmental protection.

Ninh urged all stakeholders including the Government, ministries, local authorities and residents to work together to achieve set targets by stepping up efforts to mobilise needed resources, especially financial sources.

The ministries of Finance (MoF) and Investment and Planning (MPI) should take the lead in finding new funding sources for the nation's rural development programme.

Ninh, who is also Director of Steering Central Committee for New Rural Development, praised the programme's achievements over past five years, which were particularly noteworthy in the context of limiting funding from the State Budget.

He noted that financial contributions from local residents have been effectively mobilised and used.

A report from the MoT said Viet Nam will likely fulfill the rural transportation development targets set in the national five-year plan that ends this year.

Deputy Transport Minister Nguyen Van The, who presented his ministry's report at the teleconference, said that so far this year, the country has maintained the needed pace of rural transport development.

He said 25 per cent of rural communes nation-wide were expected to reach rural transportation standards by the end of this year, which is five per cent more than the plan's target. The rural transport standard, part of the new-style rural area criteria, requires that all inter-communal roads are concretised or otherwise upgraded to accommodate all kinds of vehicles.

The said the total length of rural concretised roads has increased remarkably over the past five years to reach 217,433km. These have been built at an estimated cost of VND186,194 billion (about US$8.4 billion).

About 47,436km of new roads have been built in the last five years, an increase of 10,251km over the previous two five-year plan periods (2001-2010).

An additional 103,394km of rural roads have been upgraded, an increase of 54 per cent over the past five years.

More than 15,000 new bridges have been built and 11,500 upgraded, the teleconference heard.

Deputy Minister The said transport departments nationwide planned to fulfill the target of concretising all inter-commune roads by 2020, helping at least 50 per cent of the communes to fulfill their new rural area development targets. — VNS